I would love this book even without audio, but having listened to her narrate both books so far, I can’t imagine it without her now. The foursome’s cosy relationship with the local Fairhaven police detectives – young Donna and her boss, Chris – is now established as a firm friendship; the wonderfully buff Polish handyman Bogdan is likewise reliably on hand. Because things are more fun for you when they’re not planned, and they were more fun for him when they were planned.

It's all terribly amusing and Oscar Wilde-ish, lots of banter and disarming openness that conceals all sorts of shenanigans. As for Connie, they (Ron and Bogdan) invite Connie to attend the meeting telling her that it’s an opportunity for her expand her drug trade.The characters Ron, Ibrahim, Elizabeth and Joyce sounded similar, if their dialogue was mixed up I wouldn’t notice.

Elizabeth's heartstrings are being pulled by her ex, naïve Joyce is a hoot, Ron lets his heart show as he strongarms his way through whatever needs to be done, and battered and devastated Ibrahim is the best friend a little kid can have. It could have easily been a bit of a celeb book that just did what it did in week one, but the quality speaks for itself and it kept going and has just been absolutely massive.There wasn’t enough setting around the Coopers Chase retirement home and the Thursday Murder Club gathering like there was in book 1. Book number two of the series, The Man Who Died Twice, was released on 16 September 2021, a third, The Bullet That Missed, in September 2022 and a fourth, The Last Devil to Die, in September 2023.

The Thursday Murder Club has sold more than one million copies since it was published in September last year, and has spent 45 weeks at the top of the fiction bestseller lists. This is just the type of book we need right now, well written, a good plot and lots of fun in excellent company. The dialogue feels authentic from our elder characters, and the plot is developed to play perfectly between them and their reactions to events and other people. Bogdan, a Polish man of many useful talents, helps around Cooper's Chase and in this one, is particularly helpful to Elizabeth. It is important to stop sometimes and just have a drink and gossip with friends, even as corpses start to pile up around you.It tries harder to craft a cleverer and more complex mystery, but that also means that there’s more opportunity for plot holes — of which I thought there were quite a few (see the Spoiler-ish Thoughts section, below).

We learn that one of the members of the club, Elizabeth, was once an MI5 (British intelligence) agent — which was hinted at heavily in the first book but not clearly stated until now. Richard Osman’s action-packed second outing with the Thursday Murder Club overflows with wit, friendship, and derring-do, as the eccentric quartet of British crime solvers joins forces from a countryside retirement village. I think if you liked the first book, you’ll probably enjoy the second one as well, especially if you’re really enamored with the characters.

Will Elizabeth and company be able to outwit the Mafia, international thieves, hired killers, renegade officers and other assorted baddies while the laughs keep coming? Elizabeth Best, the leader of the group, is a former MI5 agent; Ron Ritchie is a former trade union leader; Ibrahim Arif is a retired Egyptian psychiatrist; Joyce Meadowcroft is a retired nurse. Poppy later overheard Douglas telling Elizabeth about the diamonds and hinting at the dead-letter drop. We could drive past this spot once a year, every year, and neither the horse nor ourselves would get younger.